Get to know a bit more…

My name is Cinderella, though I prefer Cindy when we speak English. I am born in the Netherlands in 1972. I have greatly enjoyed all my educations, and I was lucky enough to choose what I wanted. They were all about art: textile crafts, sewing, advertising design, decorative techniques (painting) and fashion design, which lasted till my 25th birthday. First I worked a few years as a photographer when I decided I wanted to exchange a 3 week annual holiday for a different lifestyle altogether. That as a nomadic one, roaming the beautiful Earth we’re living on.

I left with a backpack; one year, two years and three years on end. Coming back when the money was finished I worked as a saleswoman in the fashion industry, always wondering who made the clothes I sold.

On each travel I bought textile because that has always been one of my beloved pursuits, roaming the souks, markets and bazaars. I try to dress in the local style, primp myself as traditionally as I can without overdoing so. And because I have spent many a school years fabricate dying techniques, applications and sewing I quickly notice each country its time-honored style.

Every smile is a direct achievement

Intrigued by tailors, like I am myself, I try to have them sew a set of clothes exactly the way I want it, which often results in quite a total misfit. Then I have to ask them to do it over, and over. I try to enhance the apprentice skills or I am just thrilled by the old tailor his abilities on a machine driven by hand. I am in wonderment by little factories who print delicate cotton by wooden blocks. I am a little sad by people who dye textile by the hundreds of meters, often in poor conditions. I smile at the person who sell their goods for an honest price, how hard I try to bargain. I am sad when I see the nomadic tribes exchanging their highly decorated textile for money. I am amazed by how many hours handwork can be in certain garments, or how many people are working on one cloth. I find it utterly funny when salesman try to mystify me with real silk and real wool. I smile when a man in Yemen says I look good in their traditional outfit (all black and veiled). I can watch people’s clothes for hours on end, letting it slowly slide through my hand, acknowledging each thread, each sequin and each bead. I am confused when I find out the most beautiful textile in West Africa comes from the Netherlands. I can’t restrain a laughter when I am dressed traditional in Liberia and the local women dressed in T-shirt and short compliment my style. Seeing a traditional women top I see the pattern for my own translation. I am thrilled when I stumble upon long forgotten treasuries of local style adorments too highly decorated for the new generation. Excited when I meet a woman selling fashionable textile and support the craftswomen with it.

In short: I love dressing up local style and bring a little of nomadic style to each of us who equally likes so.

One of my goals is to live a self-sustainable life style. I am not happy with the way many people consume, whether it be natural sources, unnatural generated energy or unthoughtful goods. Without thinking and with no awareness of the world we are living in, nor the people producing it, nor their life conditions. I can’t change the world, and I am not trying to do so. What I do is living with less and the things I already have treasure and use, over and over and over.

Giving things away I do when I haven’t use them for some years. And with every new item I buy, another must go out. This, of course, arises from a life on a bicycle; I can only carry so much. When I am off the bicycle I rather reuse items made from textile, I might transform them for example. Therefor I rather see timeless designs instead of fashionable items good for one season. Often we wear clothing or accessories one season to throw them away or have them handed over to some charity, at least that suits one’s conscience. What I’ve seen is that those clothes are being sold in the markets and along roadsides in Africa, nobody wanting them. Not only that, with this ‘charity’ we deprive people of their local clothing style, even making demands for tailoring and embroidering less popular.

All I am already doing I would love to see translated in this venture.

Now, you may wonder about the cup of tea on the photo above? That is because I believe in slow living. In taking time out for watching what is around us. For contemplating all that’s going on, both inside as exterior. I believe in thoughtful undertakings, not excluding impulses, and where is this better accompanied with than a cup of chai? Or coffee, of course.